In the future, when something comes up, you tell exactly how it happened but write down for yourself the way you think it should have happened. Tell the truth and write the story. Then you won't get mixed up. It was the best advice Francie every got.

We'll leave now, so that this moment will remain a perfect memory...let it be our song and think of me every time you hear it.

And always, there was the magic of learning things.

There's a tree that grows in Brooklyn. Some people call it the Tree of Heaven. No matter where its seed falls, it makes a tree which struggles to reach the sky.

But she needs me more than she needs him and I guess being needed is almost as good as being loved. Maybe better.

She had had the pain; it had been like being boiled alive in scalding oil and not being able to die to get free of it

Mother, I am young. Mother, I am just eighteen. I am strong. I will work hard, Mother. But I do not want this child to grow up just to work hard. What must I do, mother, what must I do to make a different world for her? How do I start?" "The secret lies in the reading and the writing. You are able to read. Every day you must read one page from some good book to your child. Every day this must be until the child learns to read. Then she must read every day, I know this is the secret